Park Hall Care home patients hit by £240 fees rise

FEES at a residential home have rocketed by £240 a month – because of a lack of council funding.

Dementia patients at Park Hall Care Home, in Bentilee, will have to pay out an extra £60 per week from January 1, following the decision earlier this month.

It means residents who currently pay £485 will have to meet a new weekly cost of £545.

Ideal Carehomes, who run the Ubberley Road facility, say they have been forced to increase fees because a Stoke-on-Trent City Council subsidy does not reflect 'the true cost of providing quality care.'

Mark Greaves, managing director of Ideal Carehomes, said: "We have been relentlessly lobbying ministers, civil servants and local authorities to establish a fairer framework for fees across the country and one which does not discriminate against self-funding residents.

"Through strenuous efforts, we have managed to maintain our self-funding fee at a level significantly below that of other homes of a comparable quality.

"But it is with regret that our only option to sustain and secure the business going forward is to increase the fee to the level previously described."

He added: "This has been somewhat forced upon us by the current banking climate, increased underpinning costs and local authority fees, which do not reflect the true cost of providing quality care."

Mr Greaves told The Sentinel how Stoke-on-Trent City Council is planning to pay £412 per week to support residential care, or £58.86 per day for 24 hour care, support and accommodation. But he claims the true cost of care lies in the region of £600 per person per week.

The difference between the council support and the full price is paid by the residents

Janet Smallwood, of Berryhill, whose 93-year-old aunt has been living at the home since 2010, has written to the Office of Fair Trading in the hope the company will make a U-turn on its decision to increase prices.

She said: "The home is excellent but what is happening here is an outrage which needs highlighting. I will fight this because we are being forced to pay more money.

"If I don't pay, I could be forced to take my aunt out of the home.

"But the last thing I want to do is remove her because she is happy and settled there and it wouldn't be in her best interests."

Malcolm Jennings, from Madeley, whose 86-year-old mother is a resident in the home, said: "I have threatened to take my mother out of the home, but it hasn't made a difference."

Councillor Gwen Hassall, cabinet member for social care, said: "The proposal to increase fees by 2.1 per cent has been based on feedback received from care home providers and information published by the Government.

"The fees paid by the council are regularly compared with other authorities and research shows that they are among the highest in the West Midlands."

Comments

A recent survey of care home businesses found that the vast majority are planning to increase their fees for self-funders in the coming months. They claim that local councils drastically under-pay for the people they place in homes and the only way they can stay in business is to increase fees for people who pay for themselves. It's well known within the industry that people are 'price-takers' and that this strategy works. One counter-strategy that people should adopt now to save on care home fees is to negotiate the cost of their care before they move into a home. Local councils always negotiate with care homes and on average save £100 a week. Private residents hardly ever negotiate and end up paying more for exactly the same service. I've had plenty of experience of doing this and it works.

Regarding £600 a week to keep one resident, if an old person lives at home they get approx £120 per week state pension. Seems to me these private care homes are on the make."
An elderly person living at home without any, or a small amount of savings, normally gets other help in the form of various credits or benefits and pays no council tax. Depending upon their age they also get other age related benefits. So they do not really have only £120 per week to live on.
The ones who really suffer financially are those who have scrimped and saved all their lives, paid their income and council taxes and managed to accumulate a little money and a house. They pay ALL the care home costs themselves and get no help from the Council at all. I believe the money they pay subsidises those who have never worked, paid nothing into the system, have frittered
away what they have received. What point is there in saving and doing without if you are in the same type of room and get the same care as those who pay nothing.

Privatise everything is the aim. Preferably to American monster companies. Make sure that any wealth the slaves have managed to accumulate throughout a hard working life is taken from them at the end of their lives. Must not allow the minions to hand on any resources or wealth because then the next generation will not be fearful, frightened, servile slaves. Please your masters you slaves. I thought National Insurance was to cover ill health resulting from old age, dementia or fraility - can I have it back then if it does not cover me as insurance is supposed to do when I am old. No, of course not. But I paid into a state scheme for this and now I must pay private rip of merchants whose business model is to employ minimum wage workers in order to maximise their profits and pay their tax (greatly reduced) overseas. Not that PAYE gives us minions any choice as to whether or not I pay my tax or National Insurance.

If it cost £600 per week to keep a resident in a private care home then why is the Local Authority (LA) only paying £412? Shouldn't Ideal Care be charging the council more for the services they provide on their behalf? It seems like the privately funded residents are cross subsiding those who get their care paid for by the (LA) to enhance LNT's profits. If the council were made to realise, maybe through the courts, how much it cost to keep an older person in care then they may have had second thoughts on closing the own facilities.

i think the appropriate government response to this would be to send in official inspectors to take a hard look at the services this home provides and to go over the books - without advance warning - to see exactly where all the money goes. But of course that will not happen, as the government doesn't care what goes on in these places as long as it is all kept quiet.

That's what happens when you privatise a service that should be provided by the state. And if Ideal Carehomes cannot make it pay, why do they continue to open homes. They already have more than 30 and are opening 3 more. I wonder if they pay above the minimum wage?

So much for working all your life paying all your dues only to be in this position of shell out or get out in your hour of need.Might as well not work don't save live on benefits al your life because if you have no money they either have to keep you and all your needs for free or shoot you and I don't see much evidence of this.WELL NOT YET ANY WAY